belief in light of abuse and lack of love....(WARNING CONTROVERSIAL)

mods, if this is to much, please delete. i dont wish to cause trouble. but i am looking to a number of places to get help in helping someone very close to me.

there is someone in my life.
he is a massive self hater and food addict.
for most of his life he was bullied at school. he lost his father at the age of 6. his mother married a man who would not know love if it bit him in the behind.
he physically and emotionally abused him for 16 years from the day they shared a house to the day he moved out. told that he is worthless and should drop dead. on one occasion his step father even handed him a knife when he told his parents that he wanted to commit suicide.
his step brother sexually mollested him for money. money that he used to numb the pain he felt.
he asked how can he trust and love GOD, who he cannot see, after all those who were supposed to care love and protect him did not? his mother 'checked out' well before she died.
for him GOD is basically his step father. yes, GOD puts a roof over his head, food on the table, and provides a job to pay the bills... but there is no real fatherly love as he understands it to be. a hug, a hand, a safe place to cry if needed.
and he is concerned about a verse in proverbs that he believes has doomed him to be as his 'family' was...

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

he says that he feels like this is a curse.

i am at a loss and have not had much help from others

so, any help or advice is welcome..

Sorry, but this is outside the scope of the Senate. I would suggest professional counseling.

 

In such extreme cases professional help should always be the number one choice. Matters like this really require an experienced hand.

Failing/In addition to that I would consider the following:
-Keep a close eye on him. Check in regularly.
-Surround him with people who are friendly, open and non-threatening so an increasing amount of his day is spent in non-threatening, positive surroundings
-Find inspiring stories about people who've had the world set against them and tell him about them. May inspire him. Check out things like the chicken soup for the soul series
-Do nice things for him as a surprise now and again. Small things so his view on life shifts a bit from always negative to generally negative with a nice surprise
-Keep his mind busy to avoid giving him the time to reflect upon his life. At this stage he'll keep coming to destructive conclusions
-He requires a guiding figure and teacher to fill the void of parent. Don't know how you'd do this. Ask your priest perhaps. Someone he can go to for guidance
-Play down the importance of his parents opinions and roles in his life. They were ultimately human and not every human should or deserves to be a parent
-Reinforce his worth. Why he is special and worth something. Find some small talent he has and reinforce how wonderful things always arise from small beginnings. Inspire.
-Cultivate ambitions and goals based on small achievable amounts of progress he can make to turn his life towards something positive
-Dragging him out of his home state of "being worthless" will be the most difficult part because its where he lives and where he likely retreats to when idly thinking. Don't give him the mental time to focus on that. Make sure his mind is elsewhere when possible.

-What does he want out of life if he could have anything? Encourage him to work towards it and break the problem down into smaller steps so it can be seen as achievable. People are intimidated by long climbs but being able to grab low-hanging fruit can sometimes inspire one to go further
-What does he love? Make sure it's something he can draw on if possible. i.e. music, certain tv shows, reading


Have a plan ready for how you're going to deal with each pattern of behaviour he exhibits and carefully tune it so that you have the best responses/stance ready to respond to it
-how should you react when he's feeling depressed/angry/etc. What seems to be the best response to get him past these things (note that sometimes the best response is just to listen until it burns itself out depending on the person)
-what are the signs he gives when he's the most open to a suggestion about what you can do today/this weekend. Have those suggestions ready to go
-what makes him laugh? Make a list (I'm not kidding) and be ready to use that when you need to when appropriate to lighten the mood


-You want to be able to bleed off his negative feelings. You also want to give him opportunities to build positive influences in his life. Make a list of what might work and see if you can gently get him into those things
-Don't expect immediate results all the time. Positive patterns take time to form and be internally recognized as an ongoing part of one's life rather than just anomalies

These are just my suggestions. As I said, a professional should be your first choice.

Also, if weight is a real issue I recommend Timothy Ferriss' "The 4 hour body". There's a chapter or two in there on dieting which I tried. I lost about 15 pounds in 4 weeks. No exercise. Just a change in eating habits. Stays off quite a while too provided you don't totally gorge afterwards which i didn't feel the need to do. It also allows you to pig out for one day each of those weeks so if the food thing is getting to him, tell him he just has to wait until that one day every week. He'll gorge, feel awful and hopefully want to gorge less. It does work. It's very easy. Tell him to hit the library for a few hours and read the chapters about the low-carb diet and bring a note pad with him. The book's a little disorganized so he'll probably need it to isolate